Legs

You're agreeing with Chekhov there. While I emphasise the foreshadowing aspect of the gun, his basic point was that you shouldn't clutter your story with pointless facts. If a character sees a gun and thinks "That's a hunting gun. I can't believe such a gentle man hunts, but he must." or otherwise use that point to build the story then Chekhov would approve.

I've seen fanfic stories where the author itemized every item on display in a store. Now if it's a Harry Potter or sci fi story where the reader might want to know about the fantastic range of odd objects for sale then I could see it, but why have long lists of items unless they serve a purpose in the story?

I don't know really. In Swedish it is called "epic width" and good writers use it to dress the story and make it more alive. To me it often makes it more interesting to get some details of the surroundings, what people look like and the background. Besides, if nothing can be mentioned if it won't have a crucial part in the story it becomes a bit dull as it is sort of a spoiler, making you guess the plot ahead. I guess it is up to the reader to interpret what is a well dressed story and what is pointless gibberish from an author paid by the word he writes.

Just in general I like novels to include a bit of a description of the local environment, even if it's just Main Street in East Podunk Iowa. Read a novel a few months ago that was supposed to be set in my home town but there was absolutely nothing that ever described it. Could have been anywhere.

Other great authors disagree with Chekhov - the late Robert Jordon comes to mind. I can remember one of his early wheel of time books where he spent about 3 pages on the characters crossing a meadow. Every flower, ever scent, the birds chirping, name a part of nature you could find in a rural meadow and he wrote about it. And it was just the meadow. No inner dialogue, no character grow, nothing to advance the plot. Nor was he introducing elements of his fantasy world - everything was mundane enough to find on Earth. It was beautiful travelogue, but that meadow didn't reappear in that book or the next 2 or 3 (at some point I stopped reading that series - then he added B&D, spankings, etc.).

It was amazingly descriptive. It was also a small part of my life that I feel was wasted by reading three pages that had nothing to do with the story. As I said, I eventually stopped reading the series because I couldn't stand the filler, but the books were Best Sellers, so others had to like them.

So let's agree to differ over whether every element added by the author has to be part of the story line, but can we agree that sometimes it is useful to go back and add an element or three that will help bring the story to a conclusion?